


My Deepest Apologies For Your Continued Survival

by Ellinor



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Body Horror, Flashbacks, Gen, Gore, Hunt Avatar Tim Stoker, POV Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Suicidal Ideation, Temporary Blindness, Temporary Character Death, Temporary Muteness, The Unknowing (The Magnus Archives), Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) Lives, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25103428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellinor/pseuds/Ellinor
Summary: Tim Stoker was prepared. He knew he was going to die, and while he wasn't exactly seeking it out, he was aware it was coming. Like watching a train come down the track from miles away, and he was standing right on the tracks, knowing this wouldn't stop any trains any time soon, but it would slow it down, would make it hurt.Maybe he wasn't the best at metaphors. But he was going to fight back against The Stranger and its ritual, if only for vengeance for his brother.
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker
Kudos: 23





	My Deepest Apologies For Your Continued Survival

**Author's Note:**

> As a warning, again, Tim is going in here thinking he's on a death mission, and has complete thoughts of being expendable and lacking self worth. He also is heavily influenced by his PTSD regarding his brother's death. He has negative thoughts about his scars because of this as well. 
> 
> He wakes up with new disabilities, and is not in a good headspace when he learns of this. He has negative thoughts about this, and does not react particularly well.

Timothy Stoker was not doing well. His heart was a constant deep, dull thud under his skin, he could feel the pulse in the headache pressing in at his temples, a sickening combination of exhaustion and stress becoming a vice grip. Every muscle was tense, and whenever he stopped moving his joints would ache and creak like rusty machinery and his fingers would twitch.

As the weeks turned to months the archive itself became stifling, and he couldn’t turn a corner without seeing glimpses of people in the corner of his eye, a flash of lank brown hair with silver worms hanging like dead men, or even worse, one of his new coworkers who he never quite recognized. 

Tim convinced himself that the bitter quips and awful jabs at other people made himself feel better. It became one of the few things that made his jaw unclench when he had to return to the catacomb of real ghost stories, and when he had to look someone like Daisy or Basira in the eyes and wonder if they were suddenly going to call themselves Sasha and he would agree with them. 

The fact that it was only accidentally revealed that what the others were working on had to do with the Circus, that was what made it all even worse. His hands would ball into fists without his notice, and he fell back into old habits after giving his statement about Danny, telling his own real ghost story.

Tim couldn’t look in the mirror again. Every time he did he saw the same nose his younger brother shared, the way his hair was just a shade too different, freckles in the wrong place. The family resemblance was too strong, and he couldn’t bear to see it, especially now. 

His face had been desecrated with scars, and every time he looked he would remember the worms boring into his skin, wriggling in death throes against his wounds. And that was even worse, because it ruined one of the few things he had that he thought would never change. In the end, he would always have something he had shared with Danny. But now it left him imagining if Danny had been alive, those desperate, hysterical thoughts of what he would do now, how his younger brother’s face would have been scarred by those same things. 

Tim was not doing well. In the past days he had been unable to sleep at all, lest he open his eyes to the darkness and imagine his brother staring right back at him, waking him with that dumb look on his face, babbling about a birthday or holiday that was worth waking up early for. But his face would be wrong, perforated with worms, or in the midst of being pulled away by the hand of Joseph Grimaldi, revealing abstract technicolor underneath.

The day was coming soon, he knew it. He just wished it didn’t pour in the same dread that clawed at him that night where he woke up to see Danny sitting, broken, in his living room, mumbling about it being showtime.

Tim felt like a stupid, reckless teenager again. He felt like everyone was treating him like one, and felt awful in a numb way because they were right to, because he shouldn’t be told anything, because they should walk on eggshells around him. He wasn’t Tim anymore, not the guy who was brought on to assist in the archives. He didn’t even need some monster to twist who he is, to turn him into something he’s not, to walk around and wear his skin and have everyone treat him like he was still Tim.

He sat back in an uncomfortable wooden chair, and clicked the tape recorder on. He leaned into the microphone, hunched so much his shoulders ached like they used to when he would go rock climbing with- 

“All right. I don’t know what you are, I don’t even know if you’re listening. I don’t care. Just, if you’re there, I want you to know that I hate you. I hate you for, for witnessing what’s happened to us.”

He was tempted to lean back in his chair, let himself relax the tiniest bit. Maybe brace his feet against the old desk and have the front two legs of the chair raise off the ground. Instead he just remembered the dry harsh way he managed to spit out the word ‘hate’ just then, and kept talking.

“I used to blame my brother for going off his own and poking around where he wasn’t wanted. I used to blame myself for not helping him. But now… now it doesn’t matter. I’ve read through enough of these things to know that this doesn’t matter. The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck. Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it!”

And this is going to be it, this is going to be their wrong move, its wrong move.

“I’m gonna hurt them, though. I’m gonna hurt the thing that stole my brother and wrecked my life. I’m the distraction. If it looks like any of the circus folk, mannequins, whatever, are gonna see the others, I’m to make the biggest mess I can, draw them away, keep them busy.” He huffed, barely able to breathe as he couldn’t stop his statement now, “I know what it means. They gave it to me because they think I’ll get angry and do something stupid anyway. And they’re probably right. So maybe it’s for the best.”

“You know, for the longest time, I thought the secret was in balance. In some dusty old architect’s work on symmetry. But he failed, didn’t he? What was he even trying to achieve? He lived like anyone else, he died like anyone else. Whatever he was looking for in his ‘balance and fear,’ I don’t think he found it. From what I can tell, there’s only one person who’s ever managed to hurt them - to really hurt them. And that’s Gertrude Robinson. She was cold, ruthless, and she hit them when they were vulnerable, and she sacrificed a lot of people to do it.”

Tim was ready to be just another sacrifice, he had convinced himself he was ready.

“Honestly, I hope that John learned something from her because, because I don’t expect I’m going to be coming back from this. I don’t know if I want to. And if he needs to pull the trigger, to use me to stop it… well, he’d better have the guts to do it.”

“Timothy Stoker, August 4th, 2017.” He laughed again, and that bitter huff of air almost devolved, he was almost tempted to fall into semi-hysteric giggles, as he read out his own… Eulogy? Obituary?

“Statement ends.”

The journey to the wax museum was quiet, maybe? Tim could not remember any of it if his life depended on it. 

He only came to full awareness walking behind Daisy, his nails digging crescents into the palm of the hand not gripping the axe, glancing around, never willing to meet the eyes of the wax figures. 

Tim felt the slow rise of something big. It reminded him of the rush of adrenaline, but sharper, jagged, raking against his lungs as he breathed in dust and making his scars ache. 

So, because all his coworkers were in some way handling plastic explosives, Tim began to rag on the stupid wax figures instead of them. He got very antsy, headache rising with the tension, making his vision swim for a moment, before he unclenched his free hand and put it on a door handle.

Jon decided to scold him like a child, so Tim stood back again, teeth grinding so hard he couldn’t speak, both hands holding the axe close to his chest.

“We need to see what’s going on in there.” Tim’s heart began to race, arms shaking, as a strange music started up behind the same door he had almost opened. It sent a dark thrill through him as Basira and Jon continued to talk back and forth, Daisy intent on her task, and Tim just stared at the door. 

“Christ.” He finally responded when he caught the thread of the conversation again.

While Jon gave the go ahead, Tim jerkily freed a hand from his hold on the axe, and put it on the door again. He couldn’t identify what it was made out of.

“Alright. Alright. On Three.” He closed his eyes, but the flash of NotSasha grinned back at him, contorting into his own demented nightmare of a NotDanny. “Three.”

The door creaked open, and the music swelled as Tim breathed it in. Jon began to speak again, shaky, and Tim couldn’t, eyes wide. 

God there was a stage, of course there was a stage, how could there not be a stage, how could he not have returned to another show of the Circus, it would be rude to not have, when they had given him a flyer and everything at his last show. 

Jon began to speak of meat and anglerfish and it hurt, distantly. He had only seen his little brother’s skin, never the flesh, never the bones, never anything but the skin, and it hurt and just poured more anger into him, mixing volatile chemicals, playing games with him and not expecting anything but a pawn.

The choir and the Anglerfish’s song thrummed through the room, passing over him in waves, and he supposed it was fair, it was just how this had to work, that he tried to convince himself he could spot his brother in the fray of meat and gore and skin and lifeless sentience, that somehow he would know which mass of pink and red would be Danny, even though it was all fresh, and all the other corpses must have been melted down for more and more wax. Still, he could not turn his eyes away. 

And neither, it seemed, could the audience of people, entranced, with the same half defeated posture he saw on Danny years ago. 

So Tim started arguing with Jon, because God, right now all he could see was a crowd of doomed souls, not dead yet but they might as well be, and he could imagine Jon saying that about Danny, who had been so afraid and numb sitting in Tim’s living room that night. So he argued, and couldn’t figure out exactly what Jon meant, why Jon had decided that lying to himself and to Tim would help the situation, when they all knew Tim was the rogue element, the expendable man on the team right now. 

Then Daisy was handing off the remote detonator, and they were still talking in a rush of what Tim knew was english, but he was just so angry and confused and upset and his brain was frantically wondering what if this was NotJon, what if it was a long play so the ritual would be completed, what if-

The music swelled again as the door creaked open without any of their input, and Tim was breathless as the ritual was now moving, beginning in earnest. 

“The show… has begun.” A frighteningly familiar voice chimed.

In the choir, as the world became gradually more and more Unknown, Tim could swear he heard Danny’s always a bit off key singing voice. 

Stumbling on legs he didn’t have, all of them, Tim became more light headed. “Where’s- no! No!”

He couldn’t hear his own voice, just the rumbling beat and sharp jagged thoughts. He was? Who was he?

Someone was speaking, it couldn’t be them. It couldn’t be because no one was. He collided with a body, and he was talking again, trying to comprehend, to understand, but there was nothing to understand, to understand was to know, and no one could do that, not anymore, because you had to be a person to do that, and to be a person you had to exist, you had to be, and to be you would be here, like this person said.

He pushed passed them, because they were just another NotThem, they had to be, no one was anyone anymore. 

He wasn’t, so it didn’t matter. His eyes perceived a crowd, a bulbous, pulsing monster, a million monsters, an audience of monsters and victims, and wasn’t that all of them? Everyone? Just monsters and victims? 

Which was he? Who was he? 

He launched himself at a monster, axe abandoned, things falling, things in his hand, always a fist, but that didn’t exist anymore, and didn’t matter as he let his knuckles crunch into something’s nose then deflect against something solid, and pain and, and more anger that became an ouroboros of injury and rage and back again.

The first thing he heard aside from the music was “Tim, what do you see?!” 

And, unwittingly, Tim answered, “I see my asshole boss! Or- or… wait… wait…” 

Tim knew who he was again, and he was angry, because he saw Grimaldi again.

“Spoilsport.” The same voice that haunted his dreams with a sly ‘Shall I?’ called out.

“Tim.” Another voice from the same monster said, like it had tasted something rancid.

“Grimaldi.” Tim growled, throat tearing at the force of his own voice. He was so angry, and he saw an afterimage of his little brother’s grotesque sketches as well as the thing that grabbed his brother’s face, all alongside and over the monster taunting them.

“Once. A long time ago, before Orsinov made me. And sometimes, even now, for special occasions. Like your brother.” Things got weird again, he wasn’t Tim anymore, as the monster grinned wide and echoed the past. “SHALL I?”

Danny was standing in front of Tim, hunched over, defeated, mumbling about the show and the circus and Joey and Tim lurched forward, arms outstretched for a hug, only for sharp plastic shards to dig into the crook of his left elbow, dragging down his forearm, ruining all that skin, prime for flaying.

“Danny? DANNY?!” He asked, because that was his brother, he didn’t know who he was but he knew he had a brother, he has a brother, someone who stood just a few inches taller, who smiled just a bit more charmingly, who was the star of every show and shoot, even here.

“Danny, please- no!” He screamed as the plastic shards down his left arm slowed, catching on his wrist, popping his hand off like a doll’s, a cheap plastic imitation of life, and that was all he was, right? 

“-TIM! Tim, what do you see?” A voice asked again, and there was a clarity to the pulsing melody reverberating around the large hall.

Tim grunted, wanting so badly to lie, to not have to see and say what he saw, but he couldn’t stop it. “I see Nikola Orsinov-” Tim cut himself off with a curse, his right hand holding something plastic and smooth, not jagged and torn and bleeding. 

“Tim, what’s in your hand?”

Tim breathed, ragged, disbelieving, stuttering. “The detonator.”

Jon screamed, and Nikola was talking, taunting, angry, but not as angry as Tim was, never able to reach it when it was just a senseless monster. So Tim taunted back, vision flickering into seeing flaps and planes of skin that were half rotted from years of use devoid of body, knowing some of it was his brother’s, unable to unsee who wore it. 

“-Thats right.” Tim grinned, and every part of him ached like a pulled muscle as the Unknowing tried to forget him, but it couldn’t when he always made such an impact, after all, he was so charming, funny, unforgettable.

“Jon. I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can… then I don’t forgive you. But thank you for this.” 

“You idiot! Do you really make the world will fare any better under the Watcher? You think you’re saving anyone?!” Nikola’s approach was swaying, still half a dance that Tim wouldn’t allow to continue.

“I don’t care.” And Tim’s face became not his face, went a bit weird, but he was all sharp edges now anyway, a few fangs didn’t change that in the slightest.

“You can’t even save him!”

“But I can hurt you.” And that’s all that has ever mattered, isn’t it? He couldn’t deny the chase to get here was worth it, was entertaining in its own right, was its own dance and ritual.

“It will not end like this.”

“You sound stressed. You know I hear the great Grimaldi’s in town. You should go see it, cheer yourself up.”

“That’s. Not. Funny.”

“I know.” 

And then everything became even more incomprehensible.

Tim woke up in a lumpy cot, hurt down to his bones, and cut his own lip on his sharp teeth(?) as he tried to open his mouth and call out. He tried to open his eyes and couldn’t, but he was too weak to figure it out yet.

“Tim.” Martin’s voice, soft, timid as ever, but pitying, was the first thing Tim was able to know that wasn’t himself, and that was reassuring, if only because that meant the ritual failed.

“Mmph.” Tim tried to talk and croaked instead.

“Oh, oh don’t push yourself.” Martin’s hands pushed against his shoulders when he tried to sit up. “You’re- well, you got blown up, Tim, you’re gonna be on bed rest for a while, and your throat, well, it should heal soon, but- well, I’ve got some tea here.”

Of course, tea. Martin and tea. Tim was alive and Martin had tea, those were facts of life. Martin had good tea, at least, and he never could shut up when he was nervous, so he kept rambling, and that was better than a quiet darkness.

“Your eyes, well uh- those are gonna heal too, we just can’t be too careful about that, so you might have the bandage a few more days. It’s- er, it’s been a few months, but- ah, we couldn’t check you in at a hospital like Jon. J-Jon’s in the hospital, a coma, everything but his brain is dead, which like, I don’t know, it’s some avatar nonsense, but I suppose we really should get used to it.”

The sound of a scooting chair, and Martin’s hand was on Tim’s right, because- 

Tim made a choked sound, and tried to move his left arm.

“Tim! Tim it’s okay, uh, you got messed up in there, you’ll be okay! Having two arms is uh- it’s overrated, I’m sure you’d say if you could. Uh, it’s, well, I’m sorry Tim. I’m so sorry, Melanie and Basira and I are all so sorry, but we had to well… amputate?” 

Tim’s breath caught in his pained throat. Christ. 

“Y-Yeah, uh, I’m sorry. Your teeth- uh,” Martin began speaking faster, “Elias says you’re an avatar of the Hunt, now, and that Daisy was too- uh, before- uh, oh, Tim, she didn’t make it. OH GOSH, I’m ruining this, uh, I’m sorry Tim, I can’t-” 

Martin cutting himself off was followed by the sound of wood hitting the floor as the chair fell over, and the door opening. 

“He’s awake then?” Basira’s voice was colder than before, and Christ it had been her in the Unknowing with him, he had hit her, he had never hit someone before that, not really, and of course the first time it’s his nice if not distant coworker.

“Y-Yeah- I’ll go get some- tea!” Fabric against fabric as Martin brushed passed Basira, presumably. Not that Tim would know. 

“Hey, Tim.” Basira said, the sound of her setting the chair down properly following.

Tim didn’t bother to verbally respond, but if he could, he would probably be apologizing.

The sound of shifting fabric and a huff, Basira likely was sitting at his side now, not touching him. 

It sucked, and Tim finally understood how and why all those real statements came in about the Dark. It wasn’t as childish as he had assumed. He was blinded, and felt like a new kind of helpless that wasn’t exactly fixed by his new loss of a limb as well. A real rotten cherry on top, if you asked him, though no one apparently did before chopping it off.

“Tim. I just need to lay this all out- I don’t know exactly what Martin told you.” Her voice was distant, clinical, “Daisy’s gone. They didn’t find a body. Jon is- well, he’s in a coma, he’s not even breathing, his heart isn’t beating, but he’s alive...ish. Everything elbow down on your right arm is gone, but your other arm and legs are fine. Your throat is shredded a bit- screaming, I don’t blame you, mine was too for a bit. Your eyes- I went to talk to Elias- he’s in prison, by the way- and he says-”

Basira sighed, fabric rustling as she shifted. Tim sighed as well, and found the air maybe a bit stuffy, but not as stifling as he did before.

“Elias said a lot of things. Said Daisy was an avatar of the Hunt, which is probably true, but he said you are too, but because you weren’t Hunting people, you were hunting y’know, information, vengeance, it was so subtle he didn’t notice over how you’re a part of the Watcher. All I know for sure is I dragged you from the rubble of that museum, and you were dead, and by the time the EMTs arrived, you were alive. Thing is, they saw your new teeth and would’ve asked too many questions, so I had to leg it, told them to focus on Jon.” 

She paused. “You were dead, Tim. Nothing. You were gone. And all Elias can say is you’re a bit sturdier because you’re a full Hunter now, and that you will be useful. I- Tim, I reasoned my way out of the Unknowing before the explosion. I figured it out, and I’m not the same, and I’m sure you aren’t either. But I know you didn’t want to get out of there alive, and neither of us can really change the fact that you are.”

“You died, and Jon is as close to dead as a not-human can get, I figure. I’m so sorry, Tim, but you’re alive now. And I need you to know that I’m going to keep it that way, as long as I can, and that isn’t just practicality.” 

The sound of Martin coming back echoed down the hall, and Tim’s heart hurt as he began to doze off. He felt fear, but it wasn’t the same as before, it wasn’t a nonsensical fear of being unable to understand the world or yourself, it was simple. Knowing what he feared made it hurt less. He was just afraid of cutting up his lips too much, and hoped he didn’t have to relearn how to kiss, as ridiculous and small and human it sounded.

“I am not going to be the only one to have made it out of that hell alive, I just can’t be. I’m sorry.” 

Tim haphazardly reached out his right hand, and as he fell asleep, he tried to mumble a thanks. He was just so glad, maybe not to be alive, maybe not to be here, but that Basira forgave him for what happened in the Unknowing, that she would hold his hand, and that now he knew that her hands were warm and small and scarred across a few fingers. 

Basira shushed Martin as he entered, and the room stayed quiet. 

They sat side by side, watching as Tim’s breath slowed.

“He’s going to be okay.” Martin hoped. 

Basira could only stare at that scarred face, now slack again with sleep, and hope as well. She noticed the little freckles, almost lost in the chaos of scar tissue, and stared at them, wondering how she hadn’t seen them before.

**Author's Note:**

> I WENT IN TRYING TO BE CANON COMPLIANT. HONEST. My only idea on my fic list of ideas was 'NIKOLA IS A BITCH AND USES DANNY'S LITERAL FACE JUST TO FUCK WITH TIM.' because I'm a monster. 
> 
> BUT THEN. Then I surprised myself on my edit by going in like 'OH i guess he lives now' and then ended up making him an Avatar of the Hunt (and giving him sharp teeth because bisexual rights), and it devolved and now he would live (and regain his sight, to avoid a plothole), but he would help protect the archive and become best friends with Martin even more than before, and would actually befriend Basira, and he would recover and accept his disability and be happy to live again, and then Jon wakes up and Tim's like 'I LIVED BITCH!'
> 
> (Oh yeah, find me on tumblr at @save-the-spiral-again, or just @save-the-spiral if you wanna see my wizard101 and pirate101 content, lmao)


End file.
